ORIGIN

On American Soil: 1956 GAZ M20

This 1956 Russian GAZ M20 Pobeda was imported to the USA at the height of the Cold War and is almost certainly the only one in the country. The seller has owned the car for 11 years, with history on the car dating back to 1956, and says that it runs and drives well. Find it here on eBay in Janesville, Iowa with a low opening price.

It has a new muffler and new tires, though it will probably also need brake work and new weather-stripping. The speedometer does not function either. The engine looks reasonably sorted given the age and origin, while some minor paintwork would go a long way.

Amazingly, this car is said to be rust free and still wearing original paint. Despite a few dents, the panels look straight, and according to the seller no bodywork has ever been done. The almost military grey is suitably proletariat, and reflects the WWII origins of the design.

The interior is austere and simple, yet perhaps more refined than one would expect from such an early Soviet car. The rear seats are said to be in good condition and the door cards look clean. The front bench and center console will need attention however. No mention or photos of the headliner are provided.

With its Tatra-esque rear end, the GAZ-M20 has a distinctive profile and is reasonably attractive overall. Although no driver’s car, its rarity in the and early build date would no doubt make it a hit at any Eastern Bloc car show. Do those exist?

This car is not a copy of any Ford, just as little as a Plymouth or any other resembling fastback -bodied car is. If you study the roofline you can see that it has a distinct shape that cannot be found on any American car . The dashboard layout is typical for cars from this era(they came in 1946). The Pobeda is a Russian designed car and its resemblance to contemporary American cars have more to do with the fashion of the day than copying. Also, it has a monocoque wich no American car other than the Nash 600 had at the time. There is one copied feature though, which is the engine. A 1935 Dodge D5 was bought in and the engine construction was copied, with some refining, to save money. This was before the cold war, so I dont think they stole the concept without licencing. Probably many Mopar parts can be made to fit, although they converted the measures to metric. This engine is reputed to be reliable, but slow. Other than that, its a comfortable car with soft suspension and acceptable road properties.(Yes I have driven one) You could probably go long distances without getting tired. It is also built like a tank from very thick steel.

The Life magazine car has some story behind it. An American businessman claims that he smuggled the car out of Finland after bribing a taxi driver to report his car stolen. A conversation with this taxi driver was also described, claiming he said that no private person could own a car like that, they were rented to taxi drivers by the government. This is truly bullshit as the cars were sold freely throughout Scandinavia and I believe that anyone that could afford it could buy a new one in Russia as well.

Victor, if you’re trying to say that the open-top version of this car is the only car in which the open-top model was cheaper; that’s not true. Quite the opposite. For a long time, in many different markets (American cars, Euro cars, etc.), convertibles were often CHEAPER compared to their mechanically-similar siblings. Often, the coupe or hardtop was more expensive.

Some spares for the M-20 are still obtainable in Poland where die-hard pickups (Nysa/Zuk) were being built using Pobeda/Warszawa parts.

For decades the legend was that soviets stole plueprints of “some Ford” then, in true “brotherhood” spirit, sold them to the Polish (the FSO Warszawa). It’s interesting to hear that in 2011 nobody can quite put their finger on which Ford was it. The legend evolves.

tomw, it was part of a cold war tactic to copy the glorious Soviet workers efforts and sell them as expensive cars to capitalist exploiters . The proposed model name was to be ‘Running Dog’ ,in a tribute to Fords greyhound mascot ,as I under stood it.

Someone’s gonna have to explain the ‘put it in H’ comment. (And I took a year of Russian language.) An ‘H’ in Russian is pronounced like an ‘N,’ and the ‘backward ‘N’ in Cyrillic is pronounced like ‘ee.’ So what does ‘H’ stand for?

The Pobeda in the Life photos has a different grille from the one currently for sale, and also it has no horn ring while the eBay car does. Recognizing that it is possible repairs were made in the interim with parts from a different year, I am thinking these are two different cars. There are some 1953-vintage articles about a Pobeda in the US that can be seen at http://russiancars.lefora.com/2009/07/30/stanley-slotkins-pobeda-article-archive/ which seem to depict the car in the Life photos (warning, the images in that site take forever to load).

@Joe in FL. Ford sent workers in 1929 to help Stalin build a plant in Novgorod. Many other American companies sent workers and engineers to help Stalin during the early 1930s. Two things to remember: It was during the great depression and Stalin was in some sense not our enemy at the time. The total number might have been 15,000 although that seems high? The vast majority of them returned as planned but toward the end of the program there were indeed isolated cases of workers having their passports taken away, sent to labor camps, disappearing etc. in the purge but certainly not 15,000. Books have been written, documentaries shot etc. it’s a matter of historical record if somebody with more energy than I wants to look it up.

New Zealand in the 1970’s was source of new cars for Russian Seaman. They would buy any thing that was running right off the wharfs so it if you had a cortina mk1 it was easy to sell it for more than it was worth to tavarish who would carry them back to the Rodina as deck cargo. Those have probably rusted away long ago too. :-)

This car was vert popular in Norway right after the war. It was not before 1965 Norwegians were allowed to buy new western cars, because of valuta concerns. That means you would find a mix of Soviet cars among American and German vehicles, that could be bought and imported when they were two years old. Unfortunately, Soviet cars had no lasting following and they mostly disappeared…

Fantastic to see this car with its history, especially with the link provided by “w” – wonderful!

As a former (thankfully) multiple Moskvich owner, I can testify to the absolute morbid state of the Russian car industry of this period. The fact that this car has survived is miraculous but it still doesn’t justify its existence. If, by chance, anyone on this list makes the fatal error of purchasing this car, I’ll send you my last set of nos ’50’s Soviet sparkplugs.

Any more info about the 15,000 Ford workers who “emigrated” to the USSR under Stalin for the GAZ factory? That seems awfully high… They certainly weren’t Americans or from after 1945. Truman would have raised bloody hell at Yalta, and McCarthy would have harped about it.

For those who think this was a Ford copy, these came out in 1946 and so were in the design stage during the war. The name, “Poebda” means “Victory” in Russian and celebrates the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War. Also, unlike a post war Ford, this car uses a unibody instead of body on frame. There was also a 4 wheel drive variant built out of parts from the GAZ 69 that became the world’s first production unibody 4×4.

There is an interesting tie in between GAZ and Ford though. The GAZ factory was actually built for the USSR by Ford to build a license copy of the Ford model A (known as the GAZ A). Many Ford workers went along to help set up the factory but later “emigrated” to the Soviet Union. I put that in quotes because Stalin took their passports when they entered the country and falsified documents to state that they wished to stay when they did not. If they tried to leave by visiting the US embassy, they were never heard from again. About 15,000 of them were killed in the first purge but the US ambassador did nothing to stop it. He had been paid off by the Soviets with “gifts” of art treasures.

I have always wondered what happened to this particular GAZ M20 as I have been aware of it’s story for a number of years. I am happy to see that it is still in such a good state of preservation and hope the new owner continues to look after it well. I only wish it could be me. Sadly though, I am a poor member of the proletariat who delivers pizza for a living and cannot afford it.

I know of at least one more Pobeda that resided in Vermont (maybe still does, it was for sale), another one in New York and one in Chicago. The one in Chicago is a Polish version of the same car called Warszawa. It is one of the most horrid automobiles: slow, crude and above all crude. I know because my dad owned two Warszawas: a “hunchback” and more modern version with a three-box body. I learned how to drive in the newer one. Pobeda was “inspired” by several American cars. There is nothing endearing about the car…except nostalgia can be downright illogical and so this car may find an owner yet. I’ve owned a Wartburg, Skoda Octavia, still have a Velorex and a bunch of commie bikes but a Pobeda is a definite NYET.

Tristan, Ladas are practically as common as Civics here in the Great White (and Red) North.

I’m being slightly facetious, but they’re absolutely around. There’s a pair of amateur rally drivers in a Samara (with “Put it in H!” emblazoned across the back), it’s not uncommon to see a Niva chugging around like a rusty cockroach, and even the occasional Signet pops up. Hell, Lada never took their logo off their Canadian HQ – it’s sort of neat to see that, even if the neighborhood it’s in is rather dreary and, well, borderline Soviet.

No, a real find for an Eastern Bloc car show would be a Skoda 135 – we apparently got them, but outside of basic literature, I’ve never seen one.

I worked with a Russian fellow once and he told me that his father could only afford to get a new car ever 10-12 years or so. The first thing he did upon getting the car home was to go through it and make sure all the bolts were tight.

My grandfather use to have Gaz M20 “Pobeda” , victory in Russian to celebrate victory of USSR in WW2. I was delivered from the hospital after I was born.I remember car overheated a lot during drive in Kaukaz mountains so we had to stop all the time. Owning a car in former soviet union was huge privilege . Back in 70’s in our apartment bilding only my grandfather had a car. At one point car was stolen and found couple weeks later with missing parts , I was maybe 5-6 years old. This car bring me great childhood memories . However its very slow underpowered , unreliable

automobile. It’s 4 cyl with around 50hp , Unibody constraction was advance option at that time but it was made this way in order to save the weight duelacl of still in post war USSR , convertible version was made for the same reason. I dont any point of owning one unless it’ is a convertible version,it’s very rarenow , very few survived Russian winters

Are there any Russian readers of BaT who can comment on these cars? I rather suspect they were not something you wanted to see parked in front of your apartment block, as it meant the KGB were there to disappear someone.

As a cold-war curio in a post-cold-war world though, it sure is a great old machine.

Having had no personal experience with Fords of this era, I can’t say, but memory fog says they were boxy with round tail lights. I taught myself to drive on a ’49 Plymouth Suburban, and the split windscreen with a white knob at its apex to activate the vacuum-powered wipers, the column 3-speed, the rounded froggy squat sheet metal, and chevron taillights, and big bar chrome grillework at the front, in front of the bulletproof flathead 6. It turns into a Volvo from the side. What’s missing is the heater blower@the lower right of the int pic. and no clock in the Plymouth. @e55 I bought a military issue watch on a visit to the Ukraine about this time. It gained and lost up to 10 minutes in the same hour…so what IS the point?

In the Related Stories section for this post there were a Ferrari 308 and a Lancia Aurelia. Not quite sure what tags prompted this relationship, because I never knew there was a similarity between Russian and Italian cars; other than the FIAT 124 connection, of course…

Eastern Bloc Car Show? Ha, I laughed out loud. I can see the awards now: Best Heated Rear Window, Best License Built Copy of a FIAT/Renault, Best Imitation Detroit Styling. Of course Tatra gets a pass: they are truly unique and innovative!

The dash and overall exterior is a very close copy of a ’46 – ’48 Ford. The taillights and the rear bumper are sooo close. I like the utilitarian look of the ’40s Soviet-era cars and trucks. Knowing they had really bad roads then, plus their political situation then, there was little room for ostentatiousness.

Nice car. Park that right next to the Lada and the ZIL limousine in the Soviet wing of the shop, and all is well.